In Their Footsteps & Thief of Hearts (41 page)

Why?”

“To tell them what’s happened. We’re going to need help.”

“It’s better if they don’t know. Safer if we don’t—”

“Safer for whom?”

“For everyone. They might talk to the wrong people.

Reveal things they shouldn’t—”

She couldn’t read his expression against the glare of the window. But she could hear the anger in his voice. “If I can’t count on my own family, who
can
I count on?” Stung by his tone, she sat on the bed and stared dully at the first aid kit in her lap. “I envy you your blind faith,” she said softly. She opened the kit. Inside were bandages, adhesive tape, a bottle of antiseptic. “Come here. I’d better dress that wound.”

He came to the bed and sat beside her. Neither of them spoke as she opened packets of gauze and snipped off lengths of tape. She heard him suck in a startled gasp of air when she dabbed on the antiseptic, but he said nothing.

His silence frightened her. Something had changed between them since she’d left the room, something about that phone call to Chetwynd. She was afraid to ask about it, afraid to cut what few threads of connection still remained between them. So she said nothing, but simply finished the task, the whole time fighting off a sense of panic that she’d lost him. Or even worse, that he’d turned against her.

Her worst suspicions seemed confirmed when he said, as
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she was pressing the last strip of tape to his chest, “Richard’s on his way.”

She sat back and stared at him. “You told him where we are?”

“I had to.”

“Couldn’t you just say you’re alive and well? Leave it at that?”

“He has something to tell me.”

“He could have said everything over the phone.”

“It has to be face-to-face.” Jordan paused, then he added quietly, “It has to do with you.”

She sat clutching the roll of tape, her gaze frozen on his face.
He knows,
she thought. She felt sick to her stomach, sick of herself and her sorry past. Whatever attraction Jordan had felt for her was obviously gone now, destroyed by some revelation gleaned from a phone call.

She swallowed and looked away. “What did he tell you?”

“Only that you haven’t been entirely honest about who you are.”

“And…” She cleared her throat. “How did he find out?”

“Your fingerprints.”

“What fingerprints?”

“The polo field. You left them on your glass in the refreshment tent.”

It took her a moment for the implications to sink in.

“Then you—
you’re
the one who—” He nodded. “I picked up your glass. Your fingerprints weren’t on record at Scotland Yard. So I asked Richard to check with American authorities. And they had the prints on file.”

She shot to her feet and backed away from the bed.

“I trusted you!”

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Tess Gerritsen

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“No, you just prowled around behind my back.”

“I knew you weren’t being straight with me. How else could I find out? I had to know.”

“Why? What difference would it make to you?” she cried.

“I wanted to believe you. I wanted to be absolutely sure of you.”

“So you set out to prove I’m a fraud.”

“Is that what I’ve proved?”

She shook her head and laughed. “What else would I be but a fraud? It’s what you looked for. It’s what you expected to find.”

“I don’t know what I expected to find.”

“Maybe that I’d be some—some princess in disguise?

Instead you learn the truth. A frog instead of a princess.

Oh, but you must be
so
disappointed!
I
find it disappointing that I can’t ever outrun my past. No matter how hard I try, it follows me around like one of those little cartoon rain clouds over my head.” She looked down at the flowered rug. For a moment she studied the pattern of its weave. Then, wearily, she sighed. “Well, I do thank you for your help. You’ve been more of a gentleman than any man has ever been to me. I wish…I’d hoped…” She shook her head and turned to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“It’s a long walk to London. I think I’ll get started.” In an instant he was on his feet and crossing toward her. “You can’t go.”

“I have a life to get on with.”

“And how long will it last? What happens at the next train station?”

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“Are you volunteering to take another bullet?” He caught her arm and pulled her against him. As she collided with his chest, she felt her whole body turn liquid against his heat.

“I’m not sure what I’m volunteering for,” he murmured.

“But I think I’ve already signed up…” The kiss caught them both off-balance. The instant their lips met, Clea felt herself swaying, tilting. He pressed her to the wall, his lips on hers, his body a warm and breathing barrier to escape. Their breaths were coming so loud and fast, their sighs so needy, that she didn’t hear the footsteps creaking on the stairs, didn’t hear them approach their room.

The knock on the door made them both jerk apart. They stared at each other, faces flushed with passion, hair equally tousled.

“Who is it?” Jordan called.

“It’s me.”

Jordan opened the door.

Richard Wolf stood in the hall. He glanced at Clea’s reddened cheeks, then looked at Jordan’s bare chest.

Without comment he stepped into the room and locked the door behind him. Clea noticed he had a file folder stuffed with papers.

“You weren’t followed?” asked Jordan.

“No.” Richard looked at Clea, and she almost felt like slinking away, so cool was that gaze of his.
So now the
truth will be spilled. He knows all, of course.
That must be what he had in that folder—the proof of her identity.

Who and what she’d been. He would lay it all out for Jordan, and she wouldn’t be able to deny it. And how would Jordan react? With anger, disgust?

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Tess Gerritsen

Feeling defeated beyond words, she went to the bed and sat down. She wouldn’t look at either one of the men; she didn’t want to see their faces as they shared the facts about Clea Rice. She would just sit here and passively confirm it all. Then she would leave. Surely Jordan wouldn’t bother to stop her this time. Surely he’d be happy to see her go.

She waited on the bed and listened as the truth was finally told.

“Her name isn’t Diana Lamb,” said Richard. “It’s Clea Rice.”

Jordan looked at the woman, half expecting a protest, a denial,
some
sort of response, but she said nothing. She only sat with her shoulders hunched forward, her head drooping with what looked like profound weariness. It was almost painful to look at her. This was not at all the brash Diana—correction, Clea—he knew. But then, he’d never really known her, had he?

Richard handed the folder to Jordan. “That was faxed to me just an hour ago from Washington.”

“From Niki?”

Richard nodded. Nikolai Sakaroff was his partner in Sakaroff and Wolf, Security Consultants. Formerly a colonel with the KGB and now an enthusiastic advocate of capitalism, Sakaroff had turned his talents for intelligence gathering to more profitable uses. If anyone could dig up obscure information, it was Niki.

“Her fingerprints were on file with the Massachusetts police,” said Richard. “Once that fact was established, the rest of it came easy.”

Jordan opened the folder. The first page he saw was a grainy reproduction of a mug shot, a frontal and two profiles. The faxing process had blurred the details, but he
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could still tell it was a younger version of Clea. The subject gazed unsmiling at the camera, her dark eyes wide and bewildered, her lips pressed tightly together. Her hair, free flowing about her shoulders, appeared to be blond. Jordan glanced once again at the live woman. She hadn’t moved.

He turned to the next page.

“Three years ago she was convicted of harboring a felon and destruction of evidence,” said Richard. “She served ten months in the Massachusetts State Penitentiary, with time off for good behavior.”

Jordan turned to Clea. “Is this true?” She gave a low and bitter laugh. “Yes. In prison I was
very
well behaved.”

“And the rest of it? The conviction? The ten months served?”

“You have it all there. Why are you asking me?”

“Because I want to know if it’s true.”

“It’s true,” she whispered, and her head seemed to droop even lower.

She seemed in no mood to elaborate, so Jordan turned back to Richard. “Who was the felon? The one she aided?”

“His name’s Walter Rice. He’s still serving time in Massachusetts.”

“Rice? Is he a relative?”

“He’s my uncle Walter,” said Clea dully.

“What crime did this uncle Walter commit?”

“Burglary. Fraud. Trafficking in stolen goods.” She shrugged. “Take your pick. Uncle Walter had a long and varied career.”

“Of which Clea was a part,” said Richard.

Clea’s chin shot up. It was the first spark of anger she’d displayed. “That’s not true!”

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“No? What about your juvenile record?”

“Those were supposed to be sealed!”

“Sealed doesn’t mean nonexistent. At age twelve, you were caught trying to pawn stolen jewelry. At age fourteen, you and your cousin burglarized half a dozen homes on Beacon Hill.”

“I was only a child! I didn’t know what I was doing!”

“What did you
think
you were doing?”

“Whatever Uncle Walter told us to do!”

“Did Uncle Walter have such power over you that you didn’t know right from wrong?”

She looked away. “Uncle Walter was…he was the one I looked up to. You see, I grew up in his house. It was just the three of us. My cousin Tony and my uncle and me. I know what we did was wrong. But the burglaries—they didn’t seem real to me, you know. It was more of a…a game. Uncle Walter used to dare us. He’d say, ‘Who’s clever enough to beat
that
house?’ And we’d feel cowardly if we didn’t take him up on the dare. It wasn’t the money. It was never the money.” She looked up. “It was the challenge.”

“And what about that issue of right and wrong?”

“That’s why I stopped. I was eighteen when I moved out of Uncle Walter’s house. For eight years I stayed on the straight and narrow. I swear it.”

“In the meantime, your uncle went right on robbing houses. The police say he was responsible for dozens of burglaries in Boston’s wealthiest neighborhoods. Luckily, no one was ever hurt.”

“He’d never hurt anyone! Uncle Walter didn’t even own a gun.”

“No, he was just a virtuous thief.”
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“He swore he never took from people who couldn’t afford it.”

“Of course not. He went where the money was. Like any smart burglar.”

She stared down again at her knotted hands. A convicted criminal, thought Jordan. She hardly looked the part. But she had managed to deceive him from the start, and he knew now he couldn’t trust his own eyes, his own instincts. Not where she was concerned.

He refocused his attention on the file. There were a few pages of notes written in Niki Sakaroff’s precise hand, dates of arrest, conviction, imprisonment. There was a copy of a news article about the career of Walter Rice, whose exploits had earned legendary status in the Boston area. As Clea had said, old Walter never actually hurt anyone. He just robbed and he did it with style. He was known as the Red Rose Thief, for his habit of always leaving behind his calling card: a single rose, his gesture of apology to the victims.

Even the most skillful thief, however, eventually meets with bad luck. In Walter’s case it took the form of an alert homeowner with a loaded pistol. Caught in the act, with a bullet in his arm, Walter found himself scrambling out the window for his life.

Two days later he was arrested in his niece’s apartment, where he’d sought refuge and first aid.

No wonder she did such a good job of dressing my
wound,
thought Jordan.
She’s had practice.

“It seems to be a Rice family trait,” observed Richard.

“Trouble with the law.”

Clea didn’t refute the statement.

“What about this cousin Tony?” asked Jordan.

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“He served six years. Burglary,” said Richard. “Niki hears through the grapevine that Tony Rice is somewhere in Europe, working as a fence in black market antiques. Am I right, Miss Rice?”

Clea looked up. “Leave Tony out of this. He’s clean now.”

“Is he the one you’re working with?”

“I’m not working with anyone.”

“Then how were you planning to fence the loot?”

“What loot?”

“The items you planned to steal from Guy Delancey?” She reacted with a look of hopeless frustration. “Why do I bother to answer your questions?” she said. “You’ve already tried and convicted me. There’s nothing left to say.”

“There’s plenty left for you to say,” said Jordan. “Who’s trying to kill you? And maybe pop me off in the process?”

“He won’t bother with you, once I’m gone.”

“
Who
won’t?”

“The man I told you about.” She sighed. “The Belgian.”

“You mean that part of the story was true?”

“Yes. Absolutely true. So was the part about the
Max
Havelaar.
”

“What Belgian?” asked Richard.

“His name is Van Weldon,” said Clea. “He has people working for him everywhere. Guy was just an accidental victim.
I’m
the one Van Weldon wants dead.” There was a long silence. Richard said slowly, “Victor Van Weldon?”

A glint of fear suddenly appeared in Clea’s eyes. She was staring at Richard. “You…know him?”

“No. I just heard the name. A short time ago, in fact.” He was frowning at Clea, as though seeing some new
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aspect to her face. “I spoke to one of the constables about the man shot at the railway station.”

“The one who tried to kill us?” said Jordan.